MAGA – Page 2 – bendingtheneedle

Let’s Ask Arty!

Let’s Ask Arty uses existing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to query LLMs about politics in these troubled times.

Query1: Do humans seek facts or do they rely on information sources that confirm their existing biases?

Great question! Human behavior regarding information-seeking can be complex. People often demonstrate a tendency known as “confirmation bias,” where they favor information that aligns with their pre-existing beliefs and overlook or dismiss information that challenges those views. This can create echo chambers, especially in today’s digital age, where algorithms can amplify content that matches one’s interests and biases.

However, this isn’t the whole story. Many people actively seek out factual information and strive to consider multiple perspectives to develop a well-rounded understanding. Some individuals are more inclined toward critical thinking and skepticism, which helps them scrutinize information sources more carefully. In the end, it seems to be a blend of both tendencies, influenced by factors such as education, cognitive styles, and the information environment.

Query2: What human traits and characteristics lead them to actively seek out factual information to overcome confirmation bias?

Certain traits and characteristics can drive individuals to actively seek out factual information and overcome confirmation bias:

Open-mindedness: People who are open to new experiences and perspectives are more likely to seek out diverse sources of information and consider viewpoints that differ from their own.
Intellectual Curiosity: A strong desire to learn and understand the world motivates individuals to gather accurate and comprehensive information, even if it challenges their beliefs.
Critical Thinking: Individuals who engage in critical thinking are skilled at analyzing information, evaluating evidence, and questioning assumptions, which helps them identify biases and seek out reliable sources.
Humility: Recognizing one’s own limitations and the possibility of being wrong fosters a willingness to update beliefs based on new evidence.
Empathy: Understanding and valuing others’ perspectives encourages individuals to consider information that might contradict their own views.
Education and Awareness: Higher levels of education and awareness about cognitive biases can empower individuals to actively seek out factual information and strive for a balanced understanding.

These traits and characteristics can help individuals navigate the vast amount of information available and make informed decisions. Do you see any of these traits in yourself or others around you?

Query3: Which nations are best at teaching students how to think critically?

Several countries are recognized for their strong emphasis on critical thinking in education. Here are a few notable ones:

Finland: Known for its innovative education system, Finland emphasizes critical thinking, problem-solving, and student autonomy. The Finnish curriculum encourages students to question, analyze, and engage in deep learning.
Singapore: Singapore’s education system is highly regarded for its focus on critical thinking and creativity. The curriculum is designed to develop students’ analytical skills and encourage them to think independently.
Canada: Canadian schools prioritize critical thinking and inquiry-based learning. The education system encourages students to explore, ask questions, and develop their own understanding of concepts.
Netherlands: The Dutch education system promotes critical thinking through project-based learning and collaborative activities. Students are encouraged to think critically, solve problems, and work together to find solutions.
Australia: Australian schools emphasize critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The curriculum is designed to help students develop the ability to analyze information, evaluate evidence, and make informed decisions.

These countries have implemented educational practices that foster critical thinking and prepare students for the complexities of the modern world.

Regarding the suppression of critical thinking to promote religious values and belief systems, some countries do indeed prioritize religious indoctrination over critical thinking. For example, in certain countries, religious education is heavily integrated into the curriculum, and questioning religious doctrines is discouraged. This can limit students’ exposure to diverse perspectives and hinder their ability to think critically about different belief systems.

My input:

You’re probably wondering what questions about critical thinking have to do with politics and the troubled times America is in.

Have you ever wondered why President Trump publicly stated, “I love the uneducated?” or why the Trump administration is so fixated on getting rid of the Department of Education? or why Republicans are pushing legislation on the state level to incorporate Christianity into public schools?

I contend that Donald Trump and the MAGA-infected Republican party understand a population of critical thinkers would be disastrous to their platform and agenda and that the dumbing-down of future generations is critical to their existence.

An electorate of religiously indoctrinated citizens who can’t think critically is susceptible to lies and manipulation. For example, an uneducated electorate stuck in their own confirmation bias without the intellectual wherewithal to differentiate fact from fiction or the ability to pick apart half-truths and misinformation inserted into political speeches and policy statements might vote for a convicted felon and self-acknowledged sexual abuser and send our democracy into a tailspin.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told Americans the way to learn how he feels about any issue is to read the Bible. ‘That’s my worldview, that’s what I believe.’ The increase of religiosity in the Republican party should be a huge red flag to Americans who cherish living in a secular and pluralistic society. The GOP’s embrace of Christianity as a national religion is a genuine threat to the American way of life and critical thought. Religion tells you what to think, not how to think.

The dumbing-down of Americans by Trump and the MAGA-infected Republicans is purposeful and strategic. It’s part of their long game to remain in power for decades.

Free thinkers and progressives better come up with a strategy of their own to counter this or we run the risk of being ruled by an American Taliban.

Spit and Gravel

Look at all the fabricated posts

from the father, son, and the wholly most

mother-Zucker serves a roast

and the saluting Nazi gives a toast

“All that matters is what we’ve grossed”

humility dies inside the boast

our nation’s veins become thrombosed

when hate and greed are double-dosed

We need a Dylan of our own

calling out the orange overgrown

fascist fuckwad on his throne

autocratic in his tone

his wind-filled ego overblown

a head that’s crammed with nothing known

as knives cut justice to the bone

he snaps her picture with his phone

he loves how she’s become so prone

to wickedness and testosterone

As lies unfurl and we unravel

As truth gets bashed by the Speaker’s gavel

The blood-soaked trail on which truth travels

gets paved with liar’s spit and gravel

Authentic Assholism

When someone is true to themselves, it doesn’t automatically mean they’re a good person. You can be authentic and an asshole – just look at Donald Trump.

There’s a strange phenomenon in the MAGA world where authenticity trumps character, where how Trump talks is more important than what he’s saying.

That’s why we see Trump supporters laugh and applaud at all the crass crap spewing from that moron’s mouth – to them, it’s like sitting next to their racist buddy at their favorite bar. It speaks to how shallow and lazy a large portion of the American electorate has become – that a simplistic view of Trump’s authenticity resonates more than his utter lack of substance and character.

I can hear the twang of a Trump supporter now: “That Arnold Palmer schlong story was hilarious; that guy has my vote.”

Fourteen days until the election.

Put on your cape, we have a job to do!

More than two years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Its army murdered civilians, raped women, and kidnapped children.

In a recent speech, Donald Trump said he would “encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries who don’t pay their fair share.

In November 2024, American voters must become Guardians of Democracy, swarm to polling places in droves, and drive a stake through the heart of the MAGA movement once and for all.

Donald Trump wants to end American Democracy and Democracy around the world.

This November let’s end him instead.

The MAGA Chickens Have Come Home to Roost

What happens to the partnership between the Evangelical Church and the Republican party when compassionate conservatism gets replaced with MAGA mania?

How do Evangelical ministers square the teachings of Christ with their MAGA-infected flock?

What happens when ultra-MAGA Evangelicals sit fidgety in church pews and listen to sermons contradictory to the messages spewed by their political Messiah on the campaign trail?

It won’t be long before we see a sectarian split within the Evangelical church and radical versions of Evangelicalism start popping up across the country, like crack houses in the 80s.

These radical Evangelical churches will teach a MAGA-tinged Christianity, where Christ, a muscular blue-eyed-blond-messiah, wields his razor-edged cross to slice and dice woke liberals, immigrants, homosexuals, and atheists, to reestablish truth, order, and the American way.

Break-away Evangelical churches are how MAGA survives and (thrives). These churches will become radicalization factories in America like Wahhabi mosques in Saudi Arabia.

MAGA politicians are no different than any other. They understand religion is a tool for controlling and mobilizing masses – Churches plant seeds dipped in fear and bigotry to grow compliant human saplings so that future outcomes that align with religious ideology can take hold in society.

“The meek shall inherit the earth” will be replaced by a mite-is-right mentality—where the rationalization and justification of cruelty to achieve a particular end is the norm.

The transformation of the Evangelical church will correlate and coincide with criminal charges against former president Trump and his impending legal jeopardy.

Let’s keep our eyes peeled for an upstart-fire-brand Evangelical minister looking to make a name for himself by taking advantage of political chaos.

Donald Trump will be the new radical Evangelical church’s prophet of revenge and retribution.

I hope none of this comes to fruition, but I would not be surprised if it did.

MAGA Nation

Culty MAGA members sing

they bend their knee, they kiss the ring

deny they see a naked king

Banning books and fanning flames

toting guns like Jesse James

thoughts and prayers to stop the bleeding

screaming at a drag show reading

Stripping healthcare, mining coal

pushing myths about the soul

damning those who don’t obey

denying women of their say

Casting stones, suppressing votes

grab our country by the throat

locked into a MAGA craze

they pull us back to darker days

Drinking Kool-Aid from a cup

yelling up is down!

and down is up!

spinning lies and crafting fables

twist the truth to turn the tables

Deny the facts and praise the liar

collectively they all conspire

to set democracy on fire

Culty MAGA members sing

they bend their knee, they kiss the ring

deny they see a naked king

Trumpocrisy

Concept, american flag on cracked background

The other day, I watched former President Trump praise his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Ill in a televised interview.

I listened to the former disgraced and seditious-prick-of-a-president say how well he got along with dictators and autocrats and how he admired their strong leadership.

None of this surprised me.

Trump is an easily manipulated, egotistical fool. Leaders like Kim Jong-Ill and Vlad Putin simply blew a little smoke up the orange one’s undies to court favor with Trump.

What disheartened me most about the interview was the applause from my fellow Americans in the audience.

When did getting along with murderous dictators become a praiseworthy trait in an American president?

Had President Obama or candidate Clinton said anything remotely like this, they would have been crucified by the very same people who were applauding. As Forest Gump would say, Trump supporters and hypocrisy go together like peas and carrots.

Republicans and Democrats have always differed on policy. But when it came to condemning brutal dictators and autocrats, we stood together.

That used to be common ground.

Why is this no longer the case?

What changed?

Well, for one, we had four years of being led by a self-absorbed, morally corrupt, and intellectually vapid president. Trump rose to power by tapping into many Americans’ grievances and fears around race and then, with purposeful malevolence, sold them a solution based on a warped definition of Americanism.

Trump understood that a divided country was his only path to power. So, from the onset of his candidacy, all the way through his presidency, he divided this country.

Five years later, we see the result in a fact-resistant confederacy of MAGA-hat-wearing morons and the cowering politicians who fear them.

Trump and his supporters are the blood in the boner of an alt-right movement in America — and you can’t reason with a boner.

But usually, over time, it subsides on its own.

Hopefully, that happens here.

Dangerous sheep in MAGA hats

“I know you don’t like Trump, but….”

I hear this from people all the time — people I thought I knew.

I’ve come to realize we don’t really “know” anyone except our family and closest friends.

I’m done assuming that the people I “know” and associate with on social media are decent-minded — as if “decent-mindedness” was an inherent human trait. It’s not. Decency is taught, learned, and practiced — it is fed, nurtured, and supported by those closest to us, but only if those people themselves have been taught or shown what it means to be “decent.”

What I’ve learned over the last 4 years, in an eye-opening-perspective-changing-punch-in-the-face, is a fuck-load of my “friends” are not decent-minded at all.

Despite the never-ending shit-show of the last four years, many of them are unwilling to call a liar a liar, a criminal a criminal, a traitor a traitor, and a demagogue a demagogue – even when the President (through actions and words) demonstrates he is all those things.

I wrongly assumed that if I just pointed out the obvious, people with a modicum of intelligence and a smidgen of integrity would be able to connect the dots — especially when those dots reside on a fairly straight line — that the President of the United States is a habitual liar, a criminal, a traitor, a narcissistic demagogue and, in the words of his own sister, has “no principles and cannot be trusted“.

The President’s desperate attempt to cling to power, which is inextricably tied to his fear of criminal prosecution, come at the expense of our national security, the safety of our troops, the health of our citizens, our national unity, and the principals of western democracy on which our country was built.

I wrongly assumed that the continuous four-year flow of misinformation and lies that fall from the President’s mouth, like garbage from the back of a sanitation vehicle, would be evidence enough to convince all Americans that the President of the United States is a threat to the country.

Instead, what’ I’ve learned over the last 4-years is that none of the President’s behavior matters to the millions of sheep in MAGA hats, who are so full of fear and drunk on conspiracy theories, that they follow this President like bewitched cultists, bludgeoning our democracy with their bibles and strangling our freedoms with the American flag.

I left Facebook because every time I logged in, I was reminded that America suffers from a malignancy of dimwitted nationalists and hateful bigots — and unfortunately, my Friends-list was littered with them.

America will collapse under another 4 years of this President unless decent-minded citizens show up en masse on November 3rd 2020.

We must end this in November

pexels-element-digital-1550337

I’m not a violent man, but every time I see him on TV, I want to punch that mother-fucker in the face.

That petulant dumpy fuck, arms crossed perpetual thin-lipped scowl, with that fake orange tan and fake-ass hair.

He’s a soulless empty suit of balsa-wood and blubber. No guts, no steel, he’s an unsteady hand in a time of unparalleled turbulence; he’s a loud and useless howl of vainglory, cheaply disguised as bravado. If those around him had the balls to simply blow in his direction, he would fold in on himself like a house of cards, and this sad chapter in American history would be over — the lack of courage and integrity is as abundant as the president’s midsection.

We have weak and feckless men in leadership positions, where the lowest common denominator is a thirst for power, money, and sex. And though it’s always been that way, today it’s worse. It’s worse because our president is more vindictive than a cheerleader mom, in addition to being vile, insecure, and inept.

If you vote for this fuck after all you’ve seen, after all, you’ve heard and witnessed, you should be embarrassed and ashamed of yourself – a vote for Trump in 2020 is akin to banging nails into your child’s coffin while wearing a crazed a shit-eating grin on your face.

Wake the fuck up! Wake the fuck up! Wake the fuck up!

We are running out of integrity – running out of resources – running out of grace – running out of time.

End this disgraceful chapter in America’s history this November.

Thug

pexels-rosemary-ketchum-1464205

“She’s gonna go through some things.”

“Take her out.”

“Get rid of her.”

Menacing phrases that we’d expect from a mobster, a gangster, a thug – not the President of the United States.

When a president wants to replace an ambassador, a simple letter asking for their resignation and thanking them for their service is the norm.

Instead, we get:

“She’s gonna go through some things.”

“Take her out.”

“Get rid of her.”

Instead, we get presidential tweets and ginned-up articles from right-wing propaganda machines that sully and degrade the reputation of a career diplomat with an impeccable record of service and sacrifice.

Instead, we listen and watch as the most powerful man in the world publicly drags a distinguished member of our foreign service through the mud.

And for what?

Because her high ethical standards served as a barrier to the President’s craven lust for power and political advantage.

“She’s gonna go through some things”

“Take her out”

“Get rid of her”

Trump’s threat to Ambassador Yovanovitch and the smear he initiated during her testimony (via a fucking Tweet) were despicable and beneath contempt, and ANOTHER example of the character (or lack thereof) of our President.

How much more evidence do people need that the President is a thug, driven by self-interest?

What is the moral tipping point for those who use low unemployment numbers and a high stock market as rationale for turning a blind-eye to presidential thuggery and crimes?

By the way, we can have a decent and moral president – AND a strong economy – Just look at our last president.